Early Dynastic Egypt (29 page)

Perhaps as a further indication of rank, viziers of the Old Kingdom generally bore the additional title
ỉrỉ-p t.
It may be no coincidence that the two earliest-known holders of the title were buried at North Saqqara, overlooking the seat of Early Dynastic government. It is tempting to identify the owners of all the major tombs at North Saqqara—including S3506 and S3505, each built for an
ỉrỉ-p t—
as ‘proto-viziers’; in other words, the officials at the head of the national administration (cf. Baines 1995:138).

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE PROVINCES

State control of the means of production, achieved through the mechanism of royal foundations, gave the court a ready-made network of institutions and administrators by which to exercise political control over the provinces. The system was best developed in the Delta, where the majority of royal foundations were probably located. It is thus in the context of Lower Egypt that the earliest evidence for regional administration is found.

Lower Egypt

At least as early as the middle of the First Dynasty, the Delta seems to have been divided into two for administrative purposes. Sealings from the tomb of Merneith refer, in one case, to the ‘fields of the west’, in another to the eastern Delta (Petrie 1900: pl. XXIII.37– 8; Martin-Pardey 1976:17). The administrative division of the Delta was apparently maintained until the Third Dynasty—as indicated on a sealing from Beit Khallaf mastaba K5, dated to the reign of Netjerikhet (Garstang 1902: pl. XXVI.8; Weill 1908:86)—when a widespread reorganisation of regional government seems to have taken place.

The titles most closely connected with provincial administration in Second and Third Dynasty sources are
hq3 hwt- 3t
and
^c
-mr
(Martin-Pardey 1976:24, 54, 57). Both seem to refer exclusively to localities in Lower Egypt, especially in the western Delta. The connection with the administration of royal domains and estates is clear. Throughout the First Dynasty, the title
-mr,
‘administrator’, was borne by officials in charge of domains and their produce. Likewise, the other title,
hq3 hwt- 3t,
‘governor of the great estate’, may originally have designated the official responsible for the royal mortuary estate, since this is the likely meaning of
hwt- 3t
(Husson and Valbelle 1992:28). Although
-mr
is the usual title for a provincial administrator in the Third Dynasty (for example, in the inscription of Metjen), it may have been replaced by
hq3 hwt- 3t
in the Old Kingdom when the former title retained purely ranking significance (Martin-Pardey 1976:43, 54, 45). Since both titles are of great antiquity—
-mr
is first attested in the reign of Djet, while a
hwt- 3t
is first mentioned on the stela of Sabef from the reign of Qaa—it is impossible to determine at which point they began to be applied to the sphere of provincial administration, rather than the management of royal land-holdings.

Developing, as it did, out of the system of domain administration – with both ideological and functional links to the court—provincial government of Lower Egypt seems to have maintained much closer links with the residence than did the government of the Upper Egyptian regions. During the Early Dynastic period and into the Old Kingdom, the regional administrators of the Delta may have resided at Memphis, rather than in the province(s) for which they had responsibility (Husson and Valbelle 1992:53). Even though at the end of the Third Dynasty Metjen was both priest of the local god of Letopolis and
-mr
of the Letopolite nome, there does not appear to have been an explicit link between political and priestly office in Lower Egypt (Martin-Pardey 1976:42).

Upper Egypt

Evidence for the early administration of Upper Egypt is extremely scarce. It has been suggested that the ancient title
ỉrỉ-Nh n
was held by the ‘governor of the Upper Egyptian regional capital’ (Kaplony 1963, I: 450), though there is no evidence to support such an interpretation (Martin-Pardey 1976:37). In the light of recent evidence from Elephantine, an alternative suggestion, that
ỉrỉ-Nh n
was the title of the fortress-commander responsible for guarding Egypt’s southern frontier (Martin-Pardey 1976:38), must also be rejected. None the less, a distinctive pattern of central control—indicated by different titles—seems to have evolved for Upper Egypt in the Early Dynastic period, and aspects of this system may have been inherited from the preceding Predynastic period (Helck 1954:81).

Possibly the earliest type of local administrator in Upper Egypt was the office of ‘mayor’
(h3tỉ- ).
This title is first attested on a sealing from the tomb of Merneith, where it occurs in conjunction with the name of the official Sekh-ka (Petrie 1900: pl. XXII.32). The title recurs on a Third Dynasty sealing from Beit Khallaf (Kaplony 1963, III: fig. 324), and the overseer of a mining expedition to the Wadi Maghara in the reign of Sekhemkhet also held the title
h3tỉ-
(Gardiner and Peet 1952: pl. I). (Exceptionally, the title
h3tỉ-
occurs in the context of nome administration in the tomb inscription of Pehernefer; he apparently held the office of ‘mayor’ of the Busiris nome of Lower Egypt

[Martin-Pardey 1976:40].) Another title applied in the later Third Dynasty to Upper Egyptian administrators,
hq3,
is undoubtedly a very ancient designation of office. In the reign of Den, Setka bore the title
hq3
(Emery 1958: pl. 82.38), though a connection with provincial administration is not made explicit. A seal-impression from a Third Dynasty context at Elephantine mentions the governor
(hq3)
of a locality called
ỉtỉ-t3w
(Kaplony 1963, III: figs 282, 285–6; Seidlmayer 1996b: 121) whilst the governor of the island community itself bore the title
ỉmỉ-r3 3bw,
‘overseer of Elephantine’ (Leclant and Clerc 1993:250; Pätznick, in Kaiser
et al.
1995:181 and 182, fig. 29a; Seidlmayer 1996b: 113). During the course of the Third Dynasty, the title
hq3
seems to have been superseded by a different administrative designation,
sšm-t3.
This is first attested on a stone vessel from the Step Pyramid galleries (Lacau and Lauer 1965: pl. 28.5) and was the title borne by Metjen in connection with Upper Egyptian regions at the end of the Third Dynasty. The transition from the earlier to the later designation seems to have been gradual, since both titles are attested for the sixteenth Upper Egyptian nome in the Second Dynasty (Martin- Pardey 1976:63).

In the reign of Netjerikhet, the high official Hesira bore the title
wr m w Šm w,
‘greatest of the tens of Upper Egypt’. This may indicate a position in the provincial administration, since in the Sixth Dynasty the same title carried responsibility for conscripting men for corvée labour in the particular districts under the official’s control (Wood 1978:15). Further, it has been suggested that the variation in the lists of titles carved on the relief panels from Hesira’s tomb ‘might reflect (his) official functions in various geographical districts’ (Wood 1978:20).

The origins of the nome system

As an administrative mechanism, the nome system—the division of Egypt into regional administrative units—allowed the king to appoint trusted officials to various specific duties which were easiest to undertake on a regional basis, such as irrigation and tax assessment (Martin-Pardey 1976:22). The nomes of Lower Egypt, apparently based on the location of royal domains, probably originated as collection points for agricultural produce destined for the royal treasury (Helck 1954:80). There is considerable uncertainty about whether the nome system was originally devised for Lower Egypt or for Upper Egypt. Its main purpose was to allow a tighter, more uniform control of the provinces by the state (Martin-Pardey 1976:28). This would probably have been a greater concern with respect to the regions of Upper Egypt, more distant from the capital and traditionally more independent-minded than the Delta. However, the nome sign itself depicts an area of irrigated land, and this has suggested to some that the system originated in Lower Egypt. The north of the country seems to have lacked any well-defined, pre- existing political structures, and it was therefore more suited to the imposition of a new system of central control by the state (Martin-Pardey 1976:25). Moreover, the similarities in terminology between the administration of royal domains and the early nome system tend to suggest a direct link between the two.

The division of Egypt into nomes clearly occurred at some point before the beginning of the Third Dynasty (Martin-Pardey 1976:18). A seal-impression from Abydos dating to the reign of Netjerikhet may show the standard of the eighth Upper Egyptian nome, the Thinite nome (Newberry 1909: pl. XXIII.VIII; Martin-Pardey 1976:33), suggesting that

the system was already in existence. Ink inscriptions on stone vessels from the Step Pyramid complex, plausibly dated to the reign of Ninetjer (Helck 1979:129), show the sign of the sixteenth Upper Egyptian nome, as does a seal-impression from the tomb of Khasekhemwy. A fragmentary sealing of Sekhemib from the tomb of Peribsen also appears to show the lower part of a nome standard (Petrie 1901: pl. XXI.172). Some scholars have suggested that the nome system was established as a deliberate policy of the early state at the time of Egypt’s political unification (Kaiser, quoted in Martin- Pardey 1976:29; Martin-Pardey 1976:19), arguing that a system of regional administration would have been essential for the cohesion of the newly unified state (Martin-Pardey 1976:40). Others have linked the origins of the nome system to the new economic demands created by pyramid-building (Helck, quoted in Martin-Pardey 1976:30). The latter view may be rejected since the earliest occurrences of nome standards pre-date the beginning of the Third Dynasty, and substantial building projects—which would have required the mobilisation of considerable manpower and resources—were undertaken during the first two dynasties, notably the enclosures of Khasekhemwy at Hierakonpolis and Abydos.

The annals of the Palermo Stone indicate that the biennial ‘following of Horus’
(šms- Hr)
was an important event in the life of the court. One of its functions may have been as a tour of inspection, allowing officials of the central administration to keep up-to-date records on the agricultural potential of the provinces. However, the ‘following of Horus’ seems not to have occurred during the reign of Den, and it is likely that an alternative system of tax assessment and economic control would have been required (Martin-Pardey 1976:33–4). The nome system may therefore have been devised in Den’s reign as a substitute. However, in the absence of any firm evidence for the existence of nomes in the First Dynasty, we should probably place the origins of the system somewhere in the Second Dynasty. It is possible that the court’s move to Memphis at the beginning of the Second Dynasty—highlighted by the relocation of the royal necropolis from Abydos to Saqqara—necessitated a new mechanism for exercising control over the distant provinces of Upper Egypt. The experience of administering royal domains in the Delta provided a template, and the nome system was devised along the same lines.

Peripheral regions

Administration of the desert regions bordering the Nile valley is first attested in the reign of Qaa. The official Merka was both
-mr zmỉt
and
h rp zmỉt,
‘administrator of the desert’ and ‘controller of the desert’ (Emery 1958: pl. 39). One title may have been connected with civil, the other with military administration (Martin-Pardey 1976:51), though this cannot be confirmed. Both titles also occur in the reign of Netjerikhet, the

-mr zmỉt
Nitankh being mentioned in a rock-cut inscription at the turquoise mines of the Wadi Maghara (Gardiner and Peet 1952: pl. I). Clearly, the individual responsible for the desert approaches to the Sinai would have been an important member of a mining expedition. It is possible that Nitankh’s position gave him a degree of authority over the Sinai as well. At the end of the Third Dynasty, Pehernefer’s sphere of responsibility was defined more precisely as the western desert: one of his titles was
-mr zmỉt ỉmntt,
‘administrator of the western desert’. The inscriptions of Metjen and Pehernefer suggest that the locality called
hwt ỉỉt,
possibly Kom el-Hisn, may have been the headquarters of

the desert administrator
( -mr zmỉt).
This official would have been responsible primarily for the desert region bordering the western Delta (Martin-Pardey 1976:52), which formed a strategically important buffer zone between Egypt and the Libyan peoples to the west.

The distinction in nomenclature (Husson and Valbelle 1992:62) between, on the one hand, the low desert fringing the Nile valley
(zmỉt)
and, on the other, the high desert and foreign lands
(h 3st),
must be significant. From an administrative perspective, the low desert—valued as a source of minerals and wild game—could be exploited by means of small-scale expeditions mounted from the Nile valley itself. The desert fringes and their resources could easily have been administered from within Egypt, and the titles attested in the Early Dynastic period seem to be proof of this.

Foreign conquests

By contrast, exploitation and/or administration of the high desert and lands outside Egypt required a more expansionist programme. The imposition of Egyptian control in areas distant from the Nile valley could only be achieved by transplanting the appropriate administrative structures into foreign territory. Such a practice may be attested by the construction of an Egyptian First Dynasty ‘Residency’ at En Besor in southern Palestine. The only evidence for Egyptian administrative control over neighbouring lands during the Early Dynastic period comes in the form of two seal-impressions from the Shunet ez- Zebib, dated to the reign of Khasekhemwy, which bear the title
ỉmỉ-r3 h 3st,
‘overseer of the foreign land’ (Ayrton
et al.
1904: pl. IX.9; Newberry 1909: pl. XXII.IV). The ‘foreign land’ in question is not specified; from later parallels, territory to the east of Egypt—i.e. the Sinai or southern Palestine—was probably indicated. An important piece of supporting evidence in this respect is a fragment of stone relief from the temple area at Hierakonpolis. Also dated to the reign of Khasekhemwy, it lists a number of conquered territories, each name determined by the sign
h 3st,
‘foreign land’. It is tempting to link the appearance of the title
ỉmỉ-r3 h 3st
at the end of the Second Dynasty with the start of systematic exploitation of the turquoise reserves in and around Wadi Maghara in the Sinai from the beginning of the Third Dynasty.